


where do we go when we close our eyes

by KALLIOPH



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Gen, Immortal Fake AH Crew, Mentions of alcoholism, Trigger warning- suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2020-03-02 10:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18808939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KALLIOPH/pseuds/KALLIOPH
Summary: In the city of Los Santos, weird, inexplicable things happen every day, but usually the dead stay dead. Unless you're Geoff Ramsey and his ever-growing crew of (mostly) immortal criminals. A different (maybe?) take on the Fake AH Crew's immortality and origins.





	1. (1)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for AH before, although I've been a fan for years and years, but this idea popped into my head and then I suddenly had 5000+ words on my word doc. The order each of the guys appear in isn't really in AH order except for Geoff and Jack. In this universe, the Fakes are immortal, but only come back once they all die. Further details will be revealed/speculated as the chapters go, but that's it for now!

(1)  
Within two weeks of moving to Los Santos, Geoff got himself killed in a convenience store robbery gone wrong. He bled out in an alley, not all that disappointed in himself. He wouldn’t be remembered for the botched job because he just flat out wouldn’t be remembered. Not in a city like this.


	2. (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jack! I love Jack. I love all the Fakes. Fair warning, this is NOT a super fluffy story. There's suicide, mentions of alcohol abuse (although no actions taken there), and just generally a very dark look at the Immortal Fakes. If that's not your cup of tea, don't worry! If it is, I hope you enjoy!

(2)  
A few hours later, when he awoke with a violent gasp and a rip of pain through his body, there was a redhead standing above him with an umbrella. It had started to rain.

“Huh,” she said.

They figured it was luck—one of those weird things where moms can lift cars off their kids or bodies run around without heads. Just some weird shit. Honestly, Jack said, it wasn't even the weirdest thing she’d seen.

It took nearly a year for anything worth worrying about to happen again. It wasn’t the most eventful year, but relatively successful. They never had to starve, but they had to fucking work for it. Small grabs and little jobs mixed with a couple shitty "real" jobs that got them by.

Then they got hit in a getaway car. Nothing would ever compare to the horrendous screech of metal crushing metal and the utter shock of it stopped Geoff’s heart for at least a minute.

It stopped Jack’s much longer.

He remembered bleeding out a year ago. This wasn’t the same. This was worse. He wasn’t going to die, but lying in the rubble with his blood seeping out and staring into Jack’s lifeless eyes he wanted to. She was it. She was the only thing in the world that was real about him. Sirens and lights grew from distant to immediate, but he couldn’t look away. He was covered in blood: some of it his, most of it hers.

He let himself be lifted away, shipped to a hospital, treated and monitored, but none of it mattered. Geoff Ramsey knew what it felt like to die and this wasn’t it.

So he was determined to make it happen.

There was no ceremony or anything—Geoff was all Jack had, too—but she was interred at Geoff’s request. No one recognized them, they weren’t big enough to be on the evening news. 

The home they had made together wasn’t much more than an abandoned garage, but it hurt something inside him to go back once the hospital released him. For days he sat, considering. It certainly occurred to him that this was, in fact, very fucked up and that although a healthy person might feel the urge, they also had enough awareness to stop themselves.

Geoff was not a healthy individual.

He wanted it quick. It already hurt too much without her. God, that fucking alleyway felt like a godsend compared to this. He could try drinking into oblivion, but that was messy, and there was a chance he would pass out and have to wake up again without her. Bleeding out sucked last time, and, well, he wasn’t entirely sure it would take a second time, since the first had been such a bust.

He brought a needle and an empty syringe to her grave, shoved it into his heart, and died with her.

Again with the pain, again with the gasping, he woke up to see Jack above him, again.

This time she was dirty and bleeding and wouldn’t look him in the eye. It was raining again.

“Huh,” she said.

Jack was distant for a little while, and despite how over-the-fucking-moon he was that she wasn’t dead, Geoff was honestly a little grateful for it. Maybe, maybe he could excuse the alleyway. He couldn’t ignore the fact that he had injected a shit-ton of oxygen straight into his heart and that Jack had crawled her way out of her own grave. And even though he couldn’t ignore it, he also couldn’t fucking explain it.

They died again, on their first job once they could work together again, and Geoff always wondered if that was on purpose.

(“Of course it was fucking on purpose, do you think I’d fuck up like that otherwise?”)

They weren’t far off from one another. Jack got taken out by some nameless gang member’s bullet between her eyes, and Geoff followed soon after with a few more shots straight to his gut. 

They woke up together, well after the warehouse had cleared out. When Geoff met Jack’s eyes he laughed, loud and raucous, bouncing off the concrete walls stained with his own blood, and she joined. They left the warehouse like a couple of risen phoenixes, blood dripping off their bodies like molting feathers and a new fire in their eyes.


	3. (3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Vagabond! I really like this chapter. The murky idea of the how/why this immortality works starts to clear a little. Plus, I love murder-man Ryan. Alpha Two wins! (Also, it should be assumed that Ryan's drink is, of course, Diet Coke)

The Vagabond was a hire. They needed another body, another pair of hands and eyes and ears, and it was hard to find a better set than the Vagabond—or so his reputation claimed.

They met him in a seedy club where the music was so loud Geoff felt the vibrations in his teeth and he could hardly hear himself think. He had face paint on, which Geoff thought was a pretty dick move. The closer he got, the more he noticed the different reds streaked up and down his face. Geoff found himself hoping it was only paint.

“I’ve heard of you,” the Vagabond said, eyeing them up from his seat before Geoff or Jack could say a word. “Kingpin, right? Quite a name. I hear you got some voodoo shit tattooed on your body,” he nodded to Geoff’s rolled up sleeves.

Jack laughed hard enough to knock herself into the booth across from him. “Oh, if only,” she wiped a tear away from her eye.

“I didn’t name myself,” Geoff muttered under his breath like a petulant child, which was probably doing wonders for his professional image here.

“What do they call you?” The Vagabond asked Jack, ignoring Geoff’s mumbling. “I’ve heard a couple of things . . .”

Jack sat back with a killer smile and cocked her head to the side. “Oh, you know, the Red Lady, Your Highness, Your Worst Nightmare—something along those lines.”

The Vagabond tilted his head. “I’ll have a name, if you’re offering.”

“Jack,” she said without hesitation. Geoff would at least have liked to be consulted about giving out real names, but apparently that wasn’t how this night was going to go.

The Vagabond smiled rather pleasantly, then turned his gaze to Geoff. He was hesitant for a couple of reasons—for one there was this guy’s reputation. Geoff knew that rumors were about ninety percent bullshit, but if even ten percent of what they said about him was true, this guy was danger personified. Two: Geoff had his own brand to protect. You don’t go around spilling real names unless you want to get caught. The Vagabond waited patiently, though, and if Jack threw herself into the fire Geoff wasn’t just going to let her burn by herself. “Geoff.”

The Vagabond nodded once. He was neither the lunatic Geoff expected, nor quite as phlegmatic as he might have hoped. He just seemed unnervingly normal.

“And you are?” Geoff prompted.

“The Vagabond.”

“We know—“

“Then why did you ask?” The Vagabond smiled. He knew that wasn’t what Geoff was asking. “So,” he took a sip out of his glass. “I assume you’re in need of my services?”

“Yes,” Jack said at the same time Geoff said, “maybe.”

A little smirk crossed the Vagabond’s lips, He tossed back the rest of his drink, stood up, and indicated that Jack and Geoff follow him out the back exit. Geoff was glad to have the noise fade away. So glad, in fact, he walked straight into a knife. It flickered up into the soft under part of his jaw and immediately he felt warmth fall down his neck to his chest. A boot kicked him hard in the gut, right out the door until he fell ass first onto the pavement, clutching at his neck.

Jack had her gun out immediately, but the Vagabond was quicker. Somehow, he’d sheathed the knife and pulled out two handguns, one trained on Geoff, the other aimed with his eyeline on Jack.

“I heard y’all went down on a cargo ship two months ago,” the Vagabond said, just as conversationally as he had inside the club.

“You good Geoff?” Jack asked, never taking her eyes off her target.

Geoff gave her a bloody thumbs up.

She stayed a moment longer, then sighed, holstering her gun. “You know, if you believe every rumor you hear, you’re bound to get in trouble. And have I got a condo to sell you.”

Geoff laughed—or he tried to, but that’s not easy to do with your throat half slit.

The Vagabond didn’t move to holster his weapons. “True. That’s why I’m curious enough to let you tell me the truth instead of killing you now.”

“No,” Geoff rasped from the ground, clutching his bleeding neck, gritting through the pain. “You wanna work with us.”

“Brave words from a half-dead man.”

Jack snickered and Geoff shot her a quick look before refocusing on The Vagabond. “Wanna work with us?” he asked, the same way a kid asks his friend if they wanna hang out knowing the answer is yes.

“Maybe you’ll figure out the secret along the way,” Jack coaxed sweetly.

“I really, really wanna kill you.”

“That’s not a no,” Geoff said to Jack.

At that, the Vagabond laughed. “Alright,” he fired one shot into the side of the building before putting the gun away. “What’s the job, anyway?”

Jewelry store. Nothing fancy, just what’s in the register and a trinket or two. Someday they’d have to specialize a little more, Geoff thought to himself. They could do a lot with just a few more talents. But for now, the Vagabond was properly scary, left the right number of bodies behind, and didn’t even try to take more than his share.

He had style, too, Geoff had to admit. The jacket, the mask, the rough and gravelly voice, it all worked. Along with the fact that the man was a genuine murderer. He wasn’t someone who had killed once or twice (though the number was irrelevant, really), but someone who earned the title of murderer through the sheer amount of love he poured into each kill.

“Call me again,” the Vagabond said, sitting against his bike at the last drop point. “I’ll answer.”

They did. Three more times. Geoff and Jack got offed once, in between, and the murmurs went around, like they always did, but the Vagabond answered in spite of all the credible sources claiming they were dead. He just smiled when he pulled up, chuckling under his breath, and got to work.

It turned out that Geoff liked the Vagabond, something he hadn’t expected. “I’m gonna rule this city some day,” he mused aloud one night. It hadn’t occurred to him that he wanted it, but as soon as the words left his mouth he felt just how true they were.

The Vagabond grinned. “You know, I might like to see that.”

It was in a shootout gone sideways. They should have had the upper hand, but somehow the other gang got in good with the heat, and they just didn’t stand a chance against that many guns.

“Get out of here,” Geoff said to the Vagabond from where they were covered. Jack was up high, raining down as much as she could, but both she and Geoff knew what was coming next.

“Nah,” the Vagabond said as he popped up and fired off three more shots before ducking back down. He had a bullet in his shoulder already. “I’m not leaving.”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Geoff warned, feeling the cement against his back crack when a few new bullets lodged in it. They’d have to move soon.

“Maybe,” the Vagabond said, grabbing Geoff by the arm and leaping out of the line of fire as their cover crumpled to dust.

“Jack, we’re in deep, it’s not looking good,” Geoff said into his walkie talkie.

“I’m doing my best but—“ Jack’s voice cut out with a horrible crackle. Geoff felt it, deep in his gut. She was gone.

What surprised him was that the Vagabond stopped dead in his tracks, a curious look on his face. “Huh.”

The fire came again, driving them towards the alleyway where most of the flak was waiting before Geoff could really think about what the Vagabond meant, and they ran. Each bullet seemed less frightening, carrying the promise of Jack with it.

“Fuck,” the Vagabond growled, slamming Geoff against the wall with one arm. “When I say run, fucking run.”

“I’ll be fine, you run,” Geoff ordered.

“Not happening.”

“Just fucking do as I say.”

“Too late—run!” The Vagabond shoved him towards the breakaway right past the big line of fire, but Geoff managed to spin on his heels and pop off two shots at the oncoming enemies before taking a bullet straight through his palm.

“You idiot!” the Vagabond shouted. “Get out!” He loosed an unholy number of bullets from his weapon without looking. His eyes were trained on Geoff in the line of fire as he ran, bodily checking him out of the line of fire. Geoff could hear the bullets ricocheting. A few sunk into the Vagabond’s back and he didn’t flinch. The one that sailed straight through his neck, though, that one pierced through him and the lights went out in his eyes. Even tumbling across the ground from the force of his shove, Geoff could see the spray of blood and hear the gurgled gasp that killed the Vagabond.

He was out, then, escaped. He looked down at his gun, considering. The pull was stronger than any other time, and he figured he knew why. There were two souls waiting for him now and he desperately wanted to bring them back. He had to get their bodies first, though. The Vagabond wouldn’t know what was going on when he woke up, and Geoff felt he owed it to him.

It wasn’t hard to sneak into the coroner’s office after he laid low for a few hours. Jack and the Vagabond were there, on steel tables, stark naked and riddled with bullet holes (the Vagabond’s neck really unsettled his stomach). Geoff sighed, locked the door behind him, and blew his brains out.

There was a strange harmony in the three synchronized gasps as they woke up. Geoff pushed himself up off the linoleum floor from his coagulated blood, and glanced between Jack and the Vagabond.

Jack seemed alright, swinging her legs over the side of the table and letting a shiver run its course through her body. “It’s fucking cold in here.”

The Vagabond’s eyes looked wild, almost feral, flickering across the room to find something to attack. Geoff raised a hand and gave a weak little wave. “Hey.”

That, coupled with the otherwise utter stillness of the room, seemed to make the Vagabond settle down. Geoff realized that this was the first time he’d seen him without his face paint on. If he wasn’t mistaken, he might have even seen some blonde roots in his hair.

His shoulders slackened and he crossed his legs like a school child. “Well, that was interesting.”

“Yup,” Jack agreed, hopping off her table and crossing the room to his. She pulled Geoff up along the way. “Welcome back.”

“Is that . . . a one time thing?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Geoff waved his hand dismissively. “I think you finally owe us your name, now that our lives are cosmically intertwined or whatever.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Name,” Jack reminded him gently.

“Oh, yeah. I’m Ryan.”


	4. (4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin Free, the Golden Boy! I love that Gavin was the biggest fan and so just kinda . . . put himself in Achievement Hunter. There IS a logic to who comes back/when/how to tell, but it'll probably be a few chapters before the big clue drops. Still, the guys have to wonder. Also, I am here for letting Gavin name the crew just because he said something dumb once.

“I wanna hit a bank.”

“We’d need a hacker,” Ryan said, not looking up from his book. He didn’t technically live in the apartment with Jack and Geoff, but Geoff saw him there more than he saw Jack. His favorite spot was a little window nook with a small stack of books that he and Geoff traded back and forth. Every month or so Geoff would refresh it with a few new titles and Ryan never said anything but he always read them.

“How do you find a hacker?”

If looks could kill, well, Geoff would be dead and then Ryan would be sorry, wouldn’t he? “How the _hell_ have you gotten this far?”

“Immortality helps.”

“You’re not immortal, if you were immortal, you couldn’t die. You die pretty frequently, compared to the rest of the general population.”

“Focus,” Jack reminded them from the counter where she was sipping coffee. “Hacker?”

Ryan sighed, dog-earing his book before standing up and grabbing his jacket. “I’ll put the word out we’re looking,” he said. 

They still weren’t big time, but the successes they had garnered enough clout to attract a little attention. It was different than seeking out the Vagabond. Geoff hadn’t had a list, it was just the Vagabond (how the hell had that worked out? That shouldn’t have worked out). But now there were fucking applications, like college or some normal fucking job.

The first guy was a bust. As soon as things went south in their trial run the guy grabbed what he could and split. The Vagabond lost it at that, bailed Jack and Geoff out of some hot water with the LSPD, then went after the hacker with a vengeance. He came back with blood rusted under his fingernails and dirty knives and Geoff didn’t ask any questions. Jack was already looking for a replacement.

“Here,” Jack tossed a file. “Let’s try this one.”

When they met the second guy, Geoff both loved and hated him right off the bat. He didn’t try to kill them, which put him a step above the Vagabond in terms of first impressions, but he was . . . _loud_.

They met him in a warehouse—neutral ground. He arrived last, as instructed, so Geoff, Ryan, and Jack had time to set up.

(“It’ll make us look legit.”

“We are legit.”

“More legit. Here, pretend to look at theses blueprints.”

“I actually need to look at those blueprints, Geoff.”)

Everything about him screamed to be looked at, but he seemed content to work behind the scenes. He wore gold and blue and looked expensive, but was also a scrawny kid with a funny accent and hardly a dollar to his name. Golden Boy, as his alias went (Geoff wanted to sucker punch the monitor just for displaying such a stupid ass name when Jack showed it to him), was gaudy and horrible just like his name implied, but he was also wicked smart with a penchant for tech.

“You lot really need to get off the talkies,” he said, lifting his aviators to sneer at the walkie-talkie in his hand. “This stuff is dating you.”

“Fine,” Geoff crossed his arms. Behind him, to his left, he could feel the Vagabond prickle.

“So who are you?”

“Excuse me?” Jack asked, looking up from the map she was marking up with escape routes.

“Well, I saw that guy blow his brains out on Youtube two months ago,” he nodded to the Vagabond. “And I know the real Kingpin went down in a warehouse shootout almost a year ago. On top of that, the Red Lady got decapitated in a car crash. Everyone knows that. So what are you? A bunch of fakes?”

Jack laughed harder than Geoff had ever heard her laugh. She bent over the table, shoulders shaking silently with cackles wracking through her body. “Yes,” she replied. “That’s exactly what we are. We’re the Fakes.”

Geoff groaned. That was gonna stick for at least a month.

“So, you want a job with us and the first thing you do when we meet face-to-face is insult our tech, and then on top of that you insult us?” Geoff asked. 

“Huh. I guess so.”

“I’m gonna kill him,” the Vagabond whispered in Geoff’s ear.

“You killed the last one,” Geoff complained a little too loudly. Maybe if this chucklefuck heard he’d start seeing things a little more clearly.

“Oh, that was you? Bloody brilliant work, that was. The violence was impeccable.”

The only thing separating the Vagabond from a feral animal was razor sharp canines, and he had knives for that. “He’s dead.”

The bank job went . . . fine. The take could have been way, way better, but it went without a hitch. No one died, which was always convenient and spared a good few hours of heartache. Worst of all, it was kind of fun, and Geoff found himself doubled over in the getaway car by the end of the heist. He decided to let Jack and Ryan choose whether they wanted to keep the Golden Boy around on a trial basis or be thankful for one job well done and part ways. Jack said keep him, and Ryan, despite his constant threats to end the lad, agreed. He was good at his job, and they could go much, much bigger with him than without him.

Geoff could see him bouncing on his toes when they met up at the warehouse again, like a little kid. Even Ryan seemed to find that a little endearing, if the slight tilt of his head was anything to go by. Jack rolled her eyes with the same fondness she often did for Geoff.

“We did alright, yeah?” he asked with a huge grin on his face.

“Let’s not get too proud,” Ryan said, although there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Why not? We killed it!”

“That was a nice trick with the alarm system. Really sent the cops for a tailspin,” Geoff said, striding up to the Golden Boy. God, he was a kid. Didn’t his parents worry about him?

The boy beamed. Geoff fought the urge to ruffle his hair and won, but by a very slim margin.

“Golden Boy,” Jack said, she and Ryan walking up to flank Geoff, “You did good.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed.

“Can we call you again?” Geoff asked.

The kid’s eyes practically exploded in their sockets. “You mean it? Of bloody course! Call me now!”

Geoff laughed. “We don’t even have a job yet, give us a minute.”

“Right . . . yeah, of course.” Geoff didn’t miss the disappointment in his expression, although he tried to hide it. “No, that’s fine. Just, uh, just call me when you need me.”

“We will,” Jack said. She sounded concerned. “Just, you know, let us regroup and all that.”

“Yeah, go be a group. I’ll be here when you need me. Keep the comms, by the way, it’s a much better look for you guys. More imposing if you’ve got two hands and all.”

Geoff smiled, trying to encourage the boy to do the same. “Next week. I’ll call you next week,” he said.

Golden Boy flashed his kitschy phone. “I’ll be waiting.”

Jack and Geoff drove home together in silence, until Ryan’s voice in their ears jostled them out of their thoughts. “So he seemed absolutely crushed, right? That wasn’t just me?”

Geoff sighed. “No, that wasn’t just you. Man, that sucked. But . . . we don’t have a job now.”

“No,” agreed Jack, “but we’re all going to the same place. We’re going to hang out and spit ball new ideas and just generally fuck around. I think the kid just wanted to hang out with us.”

“We don’t even know his name.”

“Really, Ryan? That’s you argument?”

“Listen, I had a brand to protect.”

“A brand? You’ve got to be—“

“What if I say yes,” Geoff interrupted their squabbling. “What if I say yes, and we bring him in with us? How’s he gonna react when we have to do what we do? When one of us gets killed and we either fight it as long as we can or we just blow our brains out right in front of him?”

Jack and Ryan were quiet. Geoff pinched the bridge of his nose. “What if I say yes and we bring him in and . . . we end up liking him, but he isn’t _like_ us. What if we get him killed and he doesn’t come back?”

The rest of the ride home was silent. Ryan was leaned on his bike when Jack pulled into the garage. He was still, contemplative, looking up at the stars dimmed by city lights. “Did you know? With me?”

Geoff shook his head. “Not until it happened. That’s why I tried to get you out.” A shiver ran down Geoff’s spine despite the oppressive heat. It felt like something they weren’t supposed to talk about. A secret well-known but sacred.

“What about you two?” Ryan asked, bringing his blue eyes down from the stars to Geoff and Jack.

Jack threw a look to Geoff. “I didn’t. But you were the first to come back, did you know?”

“Nope. I was gonna die in an alley and that was gonna be the end of an unremarkable life.”

Ryan kicked at the ground, frustrated. “So we have no way of knowing.”

“There might be a way. Or maybe we’re just three glitches in an otherwise universe of normal,” Jack replied. She threw her arm around Ryan’s shoulders and started pulling him towards the apartment. “C’mon, we can’t overthink it.”

Geoff called the Golden Boy the next week after tossing around some ideas with Jack and Ryan. The phone rang exactly three times and Geoff was halfway certain the boy was just trying to appear nonchalant.

(“Hey Kingpin! Gavin here, ready to hack whatever you need.”

“Gavin, huh?”

“Yup. Golden Boy is a moniker.”

“Never would have guessed.”

“Is your name actually Kingpin?”)

He was damn good, if a little green behind the ears, and even in a few short months Geoff could see he was getting better. They kept him around for the technically challenging jobs, still trying to keep him out of the line of fire. If they absolutely needed him out, the Vagabond was his tail, continuously threatening to end him and/or leave him for dead.

In the end, Ryan did kill him. Not exactly as threatened, but a few jobs down the road, Geoff bit it hard, slammed off the road by a cop car with a rookie driver behind the wheel, and the way Ryan told it, he could see the look on the Golden Boy’s face. That perplexed, gripped-by-something-stronger-than-death look, along with the considering glance he shot to the gaudy golden gun in his hand. He sunk three bullets into Gavin’s chest, told Jack where to find them, then slit his own neck, because the Vagabond was a freak who couldn’t just shoot himself (“It’s never any fun to do it that way.”).

“What if I was just confused, Ryan? What would you have done then?”

“I’d have done the same thing, you just wouldn’t be here yelling at me about it after the fact.”

“. . . Alright. Fair enough.”

“Idiots! Can it, would you?” Jack snapped, stretching her neck to release the post-mortem cricks. She had gone out into the desert to pick up Geoff’s mangled and burnt body, then sped for Gavin and Ryan. She shot herself as soon as she tossed Geoff into the room with Gavin and Ryan.

“What bug crawled up your ass?” Geoff asked. 

She glared at him in a very real, not-fucking-around kind of way. “Listen, dumbass, you went first this time, you didn’t feel it.”

“We’ve all been last at some point. Well, except for the newbie, but his day will come.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

Jack shook her head, ignoring Gavin. “Geoff, it’s getting stronger.”

“Hi, I’m still very confused?”

“You’re immortal,” Ryan snapped. “Now shut up. What the fuck does that mean Jack?”

“You’re not immortal, if you were immortal you couldn’t die,” Geoff said, just to be an asshole.

Ryan threw a knife dangerously close to Geoff’s left eye, but Geoff didn’t flinch.

“I’m losing my mind over here!”

“You’re one of us,” Geoff clapped a hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “And we come back.”

“The pull got stronger. Exponentially, apparently,” Jack said, looking down at her own hands. Geoff could see they were trembling. “It was so fucking _strong_.”


	5. (5)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not happy with this one, but I've been agonizing, editing, and rewriting it since July, I think I just need to post it.
> 
> Michael _might_ be my favorite Achievement Hunter? I dunno, it changes all the time, but he's up there. I think that might be part of why this one was so hard for me. It never felt good enough.

(5)  
Geoff wanted Michael to come back with them the very first moment he met him. He smelled like gunmetal and burnt skin; Geoff wasn’t sure if he had freckles or debris scattered across his cheeks (both, he found out). It took one look into his mottled brown eyes to feel like Michael belonged to them. He told Jack as much, later, but she looked at him flatly and told him not to get too attached. “I swear, it’s like taking you to a shelter and expecting you not to come home with a puppy.”

He told Ryan, and that didn’t fare much better. “I hope so, Geoff. But I don’t think so.”

He told Gavin, and Gavin agreed, and that made Geoff’s heart sink. “I think he’s just perfect!”

They met him for the first time down by the piers. A few rival gangs were popping up. The Fakes (Geoff kicked Gavin the first time he heard it out of another gang member’s mouth; Ryan actually stabbed him a little the first time it broadcast on the news—but hey, a brand is a brand) needed protection. Geoff paid for some extra support in the less-than-legit canals of the city, but he knew they needed someone to head the operation, someone they could actually let in.

He found Michael and wanted him immediately.

“You guys are making a play for the whole fucking city, huh?” Michael asked, swiping at his nose with his thumb, sitting against the hood of his car. “Ballsy.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. She sat up on top of Geoff’s hood, which he appreciated very, very much, thank you, because how else was he supposed to get footprints on it?

“It’s a work in progress,” the Vagabond said, hanging over the passenger’s side door, which was great because it’s not like Ryan rode his own bike here or anything, why wouldn’t he be hanging all over Geoff’s car?

“This close, really,” Gavin said. He was perched up on the roof, perfectly balanced and walking the ledge like a tightrope because—

fuck his gang.

“Why do you assholes hate my car?” Geoff asked, taking his eyes off Michael.

“Cause it’s fun,” the Vagabond grinned.

“You know what, I don’t need this disrespect.”

“ _You come to me, on the day of my daughter’s wedding,_ ” Jack groaned, motioning with one hand.

“That was very good!” Gavin said.

“Oh, I see, you’re a bunch of assholes,” Michael laughed.

“A bunch of assholes with some very nice weapons.”

Michael nodded to himself. “I’m alright with ‘em.”

“You’re good with ‘em,” the Vagabond smiled. “We know your rap.”

“We want you,” Geoff turned back to face Michael. “But you and me—we gotta talk first. Away from the assholes.” He strode forward and wrapped an arm around Michael’s shoulders, ushering him towards the pier. 

“You’re an asshole too, Kingpin!” Jack shouted after them. Geoff rolled his eyes.

Michael’s eyes flickered between the water and Geoff’s hand around his shoulder. “Listen, if I did something—“

“Relax, I’m not gonna kill you. Usually I let the Vagabond do that for me anyway.” He took his arm off Michael and shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, you gotta have heard stuff by now. About us.”

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing about you guys since it was just you and the Red Lady. I worked EMT for a while, my buddies picked you guys up.”

That was . . . surprising. He might need to do some fact checking on that, later, but Geoff’s instinct was to trust the kid. “So?”

“So what?”

“So, why do you wanna work with us? Why do we want you?”

Michael really looked him in the eye for the first time that night, and Geoff felt the force of it in his chest. “Cause you’re the best. And I want to be the best. And I think I like your merry band of assholes, and I think I like you.”

Oh, he liked this kid. Geoff grinned. “Alright, but we can’t be calling you Michael in the field. You use your real name as an EMT?”

“Yeah, I was just a kid. Didn’t know any better.”

“Well, pick something new.”

Michael smiled to himself and shook his head. “Mogar,” he said, with a little chuckle. It must have been a joke or memory to him, because there was no way he made up something quite so perfectly stupid right on the spot. Geoff figured he’d ask later (he forgot).

“Well, Mogar, welcome to the Fakes.”

“By the way, that’s a dumbass name.”

“I know.”

Michael was exactly what they needed. He was strong and angry and loyal to a fault, which Geoff appreciated. Gavin’s approval (and Ryan and Jack’s doubt) sat in the back of his mind, but he liked Michael. He wasn’t ready to give up on his hope yet. Michael didn’t ask questions when one or two of them went missing at a time (two gone was about all they could handle with any sanity), he’d just smile when they came back.

Jack liked him. Geoff knew she was trying to avoid it because it fucking hurt to get too close to anyone outside the gang, but she adored him. He was practical, dealing with Gavin’s ridiculous babble before she had to, and planning with a head between his two shoulders, just like Jack did.

Ryan liked him, too. Geoff wasn’t exactly normal, but he didn’t have the psycho streak in him either like Michael did. He wasn’t angry like Michael and Ryan were. They delighted in each other’s violence and the harmony of their laughter was a welcome sound.

Gavin fucking loved him. He hung around Michael like a puppy, content to bother him all day long (and for his part, Michael pretended to hate it but he absolutely lived for it). They pulled small jobs together more frequently than any one else, hung out pretty much every off night, and spoke with an ease befitting life-long best friends.

“I want him to come back,” Jack muttered one night, her head buried in her arms on Geoff’s counter after one-too-many drinks.

Geoff tapped his fingers against the marble. “I think he will.”

Jack groaned into her elbow. “I hate not knowing.”

“I know.”

Michael, like the stupidly faithful ally he was, got himself taken in Jack’s place in an armistice discussion gone awry. Geoff had sent Jack to be the mouth piece with Ryan for protection but Michael snarled a fuck you and went with them. The Pirates blindsided them, which would have been fine, if Michael hadn’t clocked Jack cold, thrown her at Ryan, and fallen to his knees in front of the Corpirate himself. 

There wasn't much Ryan could do with the gang’s muscle holding a gun to the side of Michael’s head, the glint of it only diminished by the one in Michael’s eye telling him to get out. The Vagabond, as good as he was, only had two hands, and one of them was holding Jack.

Geoff wasn't sure whether they left Michael’s comm on him or if they just never knew he had it in the first place, but Jack—pale faced and utterly terrified—screamed at the rest of the crew to get on them as soon as she and the Vagabond returned. The Pirates had shoved Michael into the back of a van and taken off. The Vagabond said he saw rusty rebar in there and at least seven guys.

Michael didn’t let on that he had the crew against his chest, receiving all the info they could, along with every blow Michael took. Geoff didn’t say anything, but he knew what a broken rib sounded like. They piled into their own van, Jack driving like a mad woman, while Gavin tried to triangulate the signal and Geoff hung over his shoulder. The Vagabond sat in the corner, staring coldly furious into the middle distance.

To be beat to death—genuinely thrashed and gored until his heart stopped beating—was easily the worst death Geoff had witnessed. To bleed and break and bruise the way Michael had, and to not know that there was a light on the other side, it hurt Geoff just to imagine. When your own ribs puncture your lungs and your teeth fall out and your brain tries to kill you just to escape—that’s unimaginable. Geoff asked Ryan about it, but even Ryan shrugged. He wouldn’t say much about it, wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes when he talked about it at all, and it broke Geoff’s heart.

Michael took it. He cursed and howled and bled but he took it. Geoff hated Gavin for updating their coms so they could all hear the entire thing. Of course, Gavin seemed to take it quite hard as well. He threw up twice before it was over. 

When the last blow landed, Geoff knew it instantly. For one brief moment he was so scared that a wracked sob choked out of his throat, but it was just a moment. That was the final moment. And he knew it. He felt it.

Michael was theirs. Michael was one of his.

When he felt the pull, he actually sighed in relief. Gavin couldn’t shoot himself fast enough in the back of the car. They found the warehouse twenty minutes later, once the relief had time to settle into rage. Michael’s body was . . . not really a body so much as it was puddles and angles and flesh.

“No psycho streak, eh?” the Vagabond asked just after Geoff finished off the lead goon.

Geoff shot him a look, shaking his hand out of the brass knuckles and letting blood fly against the wall. “Shut up,” he grunted.

Jack had pulled her hair back to avoid a mess during the chaos, but she tugged her elastic out as she walked towards what used to be Michael, gently kneeling before him. Geoff was pretty sure he heard her mutter something along the lines of “thanks, idiot.”

With Gavin and Michael gone, the pull was distracting, but Geoff, Ryan, and Jack all stuck it out to make it to Michael’s body and bring him back to base before turning the lights out.

When he woke up, gasping for life, Geoff’s eyes searched frantically for Michael. Coming back wasn’t so bad for him anymore, but it was definitely disorienting.

Michael had his arms thrown over his eyes, taking shallow, shaky breaths on the table where Ryan had laid him.

Geoff stood up and approached carefully. “Michael? You back with us?”

“Nope, I’m fucking dead.” Geoff might have seen the faint glint of tears streaming out from under his arms. 

“You _were_ dead. You’re back, boi.”

“Sh-shut up Gavin. That’s not f-f-fucking possible.”

“C’mon, Michael, open your eyes,” Jack coaxed. “We’re here.”

“You better fucking not be. That was the whole point.”

Ryan snorted at that.

Geoff reached out and ruffled Michael’s hair gently. “Sorry, kid, you’re one of us.”

The touch seemed to prove something to Michael, like it grounded him. “I heard rumors,” he muttered. “Fucking urban legends.”

“Well, get used to being the boogey man,” Ryan said.

Michael’s arms slowly retreated and although his eyes were red from residual tears, he looked whole. “I have some questions.”

“They always do,” Jack said, handing him a glass of water. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of answers.”

“Shoot,” said Geoff.


End file.
